Neutrino-dominated Accretion Flows Research Articles

Contribution of Neutrino-dominated Accretion Flows to the Cosmic MeV Neutrino Background

Neutrino-dominated accretion flows (NDAFs) are one of the important MeV neutrino sources and significantly contribute to the cosmic diffuse neutrino background. In this paper, we investigate the spectrum of the diffuse NDAF neutrino background (DNNB) by fully considering the effects of the progenitor properties and initial explosion energies based on core-collapse supernova (CCSN) simulations, and estimate the detectable event rate by the Super-Kamiokande detector. We find that the predicted background neutrino flux is mainly determined by the typical CCSN initial explosion energy and progenitor metallicity. For the optimistic cases, in which the typical initial explosion energy is low, the diffuse flux of the DNNB is comparable to the diffuse supernova neutrino background, which might be detected by upcoming larger neutrino detectors, such as Hyper-Kamiokande, the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory, and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. Moreover, the strong outflows from NDAFs could dramatically decrease their contribution to the neutrino background.

Effects of Vertical Advection on Multimessenger Signatures of Black Hole Neutrino-dominated Accretion Flows in Compact Binary Coalescences

In the coalescence events of binary neutron star (NS) or a black hole (BH) and an NS, a BH hyperaccretion disk might be eventually formed. At very high mass accretion rates, MeV neutrinos will be emitted from this disk, which is called a neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF). Neutrino annihilation in the space out of the disk is energetic enough to launch ultrarelativistic jets to power gamma-ray bursts. Moreover, vertical advection might exist in NDAFs, which can generate the magnetic buoyancy bubbles to release gamma-ray photons. In this paper, we visit the effects of the vertical advection in NDAFs on the disk structure and gamma-ray and neutrino luminosities for different accretion rates. Then we study the anisotropic emission of kilonovae and the following gravitational waves (GWs) driven by the gamma-ray photons and neutrinos from NDAFs. Comparing NDAFs without vertical advection, the neutrino luminosity and GW strains slightly decrease for the case with vertical advection, and the kilonovae will be brightened by the injected gamma-ray photons. The future joint multimessenger observations might distinguish whether the vertical advection exists in NDAFs or not after compact binary coalescences.

Black Hole Hyperaccretion in Collapsars: A Review

The collapsar model is widely accepted as one of the standard scenarios for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). In the massive collapsar scenario, the core will collapse to a black hole (BH) surrounded by a temporary hyperaccretion disk with a very high accretion rate. The newborn BH hyperaccretion system would launch the relativistic jets via neutrino annihilation and Blandford-Znajek (BZ) mechanism. At the initial accretion stage, the accretion disk should be a neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF). If the jets can break out from the envelope and circumstellar medium, then a GRB will be triggered. In this review, we summarize the theoretical progress on the multimessenger astronomy of the BH hyperaccretion in the center of collapsars. The main topics include: jet propagation in collapsar, MeV neutrinos from NDAFs and proto-neutron stars, gravitational waves from collapsars.

R-process Viable Outflows are Suppressed in Global Alpha-viscosity Models of Collapsar Disks

Collapsar disks have been proposed to be rich factories of heavy elements, but the major question of whether their outflows are neutron rich and could therefore represent significant sites of the rapid neutron-capture (r-) process or dominated by iron-group elements remains unresolved. We present the first global models of collapsars that start from a stellar progenitor and self-consistently describe the evolution of the disk, its composition, and its outflows in response to the imploding stellar mantle, using energy-dependent M1 neutrino transport and an α-viscosity to approximate turbulent angular-momentum transport. We find that a neutron-rich, neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF) is established only marginally—either for short times or relatively low viscosities—because the disk tends to disintegrate into an advective disk already at relatively high mass-accretion rates, launching powerful outflows but preventing it from developing a hot, dense, and therefore neutron-rich core. Viscous outflows disrupt the star within ∼100 s with explosion energies close to that of hypernovae. If viscosity is ignored, a stable NDAF with disk mass of about 1 M ☉ is formed but is unable to release neutron-rich ejecta, while it produces a relatively mild explosion powered by a neutrino-driven wind blown off its surface. With ejecta electron fractions close to 0.5, all models presumably produce large amounts of 56Ni. Our results suggest that collapsar models based on the α-viscosity are inefficient r-process sites and that genuinely magnetohydrodynamic effects may be required to generate neutron-rich outflows. A relatively weak effective viscosity generated by magnetohydrodynamic turbulence would improve the prospects for obtaining neutron-rich ejecta.

Nucleosynthesis Contribution of Neutrino-dominated Accretion Flows to the Chemical Evolution of Active Galactic Nuclei

Recent observations of quasars show high line-flux ratios in their broad emission lines and the ratios appear to be independent of redshift up to z ≳ 6, which indicates that the broad-line regions of these early quasars are surprisingly metal-rich. Here, we revisit the chemical evolution of high-redshift quasars by adding a new ingredient, i.e., the neutrino-dominated accretion flows (NDAFs) with outflows, on top of the conventional core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe). In the presence of the chemical contribution from NDAFs with outflows, the total metal mass (i.e., the summation of the conventional CCSN and NDAFs with outflows) per CCSN depends weakly upon the mass of the progenitor star if the mass is in the range of ∼25–55 M ⊙. We model the chemical evolution by adopting a improved open-box model with three typical initial mass functions (IMFs). We find that, with the additional chemical contribution from NDAFs with outflows, the quasar metallicity can be enriched more rapidly in the very early universe (z ∼ 10) and reaches a higher saturation than the no-NDAF case at z ∼ 8, after which they evolve slowly with redshift. The quasar metallicity can reach ∼20 Z ⊙ (Z ⊙ denotes the metallicity of the Sun, ∼20% of which is produced by NDAF outflows) at z ∼ 8 for the “top-heavy” IMF model in Toyouchi et al., which readily explains the quasar observations on the supersolar metal abundance and redshift-independent evolution.

Relativistic global solutions of neutrino-dominated accretion flows with magnetic coupling

ABSTRACT A Kerr black hole (BH) surrounded by a neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF) is one of plausible candidates of the central engine in gamma-ray bursts. The accretion material might inherit and restructure strong magnetic fields from the compact object mergers or massive collapsars. The magnetic coupling (MC) process between a rapid rotating BH and an accretion disc is one of possible magnetic configurations that transfers the energy and angular momentum from the BH to the disc. In this paper, we investigate one-dimensional global solutions of NDAFs with MC (MCNDAFs), taking into account general relativistic effects, detailed neutrino physics, different MC geometries, and reasonable nucleosynthesis processes. Six cases with different accretion rates and power-law indices of magnetic fields are presented and compared with NDAFs without MC. Our results indict that the MC process can prominently impact the structure, thermal properties, and microphysics of MCNDAFs, increase luminosities of neutrinos and their annihilations, result in the changing of radial distributions of nucleons, and push the region of heavy nuclei synthesis to a larger radius than counterparts in NDAFs.

Anisotropic Multimessenger Signals from Black Hole Neutrino-dominated Accretion Flows with Outflows in Binary Compact Object Mergers

Abstract A black hole (BH) hyperaccretion system might be born after the merger of a BH and a neutron star (NS) or a binary NS (BNS). In the case of a high mass accretion rate, the hyperaccretion disk is in a state of neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF) and emits numerous anisotropic MeV neutrinos. Only a small fraction of these neutrinos annihilates in the space outside of the disk and then launches ultrarelativistic jets that break away from the merger ejecta to power gamma-ray bursts. Mergers and their remnants are generally considered sources of gravitational waves (GWs), neutrinos, and kilonovae. Anisotropic neutrino emission and anisotropic high-velocity material outflows from central BH–NDAF systems can also trigger strong GWs and luminous disk-outflow-driven (DOD) kilonovae, respectively. In this paper, the anisotropic multimessenger signals from NDAFs with outflows, including DOD kilonovae, MeV neutrinos, and GWs, are presented. According to the results, the typical AB magnitude of the DOD kilonovae is lower than that of astronomical transient AT 2017gfo at the same distance, and it decreases with increasing viewing angles and its anisotropy is not sensitive to the outflow mass distribution but mainly determined by the velocity distribution. Since neutrinos with ≳10 MeV are mainly produced in the inner region of the disk, they will be dramatically deflected to a large viewing angle by relativity effects. Moreover, the strains of GWs induced by anisotropic neutrinos increase with increasing viewing angles. The accumulation of multimessenger detection of the BNS/BH–NS mergers with different viewing angles might further verify the existence of NDAFs with outflows.

GRB variabilities and following gravitational waves induced by gravitational instability in NDAFs

ABSTRACT The present work proposes a new formalism for the inner regions of a neutrino-dominated accretion flows (NDAFs) by considering the self-gravity, where the neutrino opacity is high enough to make neutrinos trapped becoming a dominant factor in the transportation of energy and angular momentum over the magneto rotational instability. We investigate the possibility of gravitational instability and fragmentation to model the highly variable structure of the prompt emission in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The results lead us to introduce the gravitational instability, in these inner regions, as a source of a new viscosity that is of the same functional form as that of the β-prescription of viscosity. Such a consideration brings about fragmentation in the unstable inner disc. In addition, we find the consequent clumpy structure of this area capable to account for the temporal variability of GRB’s light curve, especially for the lower choices of the parameter β, ∼10−5. Finally, we predict the formation of gravitational waves through the migration of fragments before being tidally disrupted. These waves appear to be detectable via a range of current and future detectors from LIGO to Cosmic Explorer.

Neutrino-dominated Accretion Flows: A Second Nucleosynthesis Factory in Core-collapse Supernovae and Regulating the Iron Markets in Galaxies

Abstract Cosmic metals are widely believed to be produced by supernovae (SNe) and compact-object mergers. Here, we discuss the nucleosynthesis of neutrino-dominated accretion flows (NDAFs) with outflows in the centers of core-collapse SNe (CCSNe), and show that the outflows from NDAFs can have a significant contribution to the 56Ni abundances of faint explosions if the masses of the progenitor stars are within about 25–50 M ⊙. Less-massive progenitor stars can produce more 56Ni than their more-massive counterparts in the NDAF outflow nucleosynthesis channel. Therefore, we find that the total (i.e., CCSNe and NDAF outflows) 56Ni mass per CCSN depends only weakly upon the mass of the progenitor star. In terms of metallicity evolution, the ratio of 56Fe (produced by the decay of 56Ni) mass to the initial total gas mass can increase by ∼1.95 times if the upper limits of the nucleosynthesis yields from NDAF outflows and CCSNe are considered. Our results might have significant implications for the chemical evolution of the solar neighborhood, galaxies, and active galactic nuclei.

Anisotropic neutrinos and gravitational waves from black hole neutrino-dominated accretion flows in fallback core-collapse supernovae

ABSTRACT Fallback in core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) plays an important role in determining the properties of the central compact remnants, which might produce a black hole (BH) hyperaccretion system in the centre of a massive CCSN. When the accretion rate is extremely high and neutrino cooling is dominant, the hyperaccretion should be in the phase of the neutrino-dominated accretion flows (NDAFs), and thus a large number of anisotropic MeV neutrinos will be launched from the disc along with the strong gravitational waves (GWs). In this paper, we perform a series of one-dimensional CCSN simulations with the initial explosion energy in the range of 2−8 B (1 B = 1051 erg) to investigate the fallback processes. By considering the evolution of the central BH mass and spin in the fallback accretion, we present the effects of the initial explosion energies, masses, and metallicities of the massive progenitor stars on the spectra of anisotropic MeV neutrinos and the waveform of GWs from NDAFs. These neutrino or GW signals might be detected by operational or future detectors, and the multimessenger joint detections could constrain the properties of CCSNe and progenitor stars.

Galaxy-scale contributions of black hole hyperaccretions in the center of core-collapse supernovae

<p indent="0mm">Core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) are dramatic explosions of the massive stars at the end of their lives, which produce most of neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes in the Universe. The explosions might be associated with long-duration gamma-ray bursts originating from the black hole fallback hyperaccretions or neutron stars with strong magnetic fields. CCSNe are also considered to be one of the main factories of the heavy elements. In this review, I briefly introduce our recent work on the black hole hyperaccretions in the center of CCSNe. We studied the effects of dark matter annihilation on the shapes of the light curves and spectra in the gamma-ray burst afterglows near the galaxy centers, which might be considered as a possible detection method for dark matter. We also studied nucleosynthesis of the disk outflows from neutrino-dominated accretion flows in the collapsar scenario, and their contributions to the chemical components and evolutions of the solar neighborhood and (active) galaxies. Finally, we simulated the explosions of CCSNe and demonstrated that the distributions of the explosion energies might lead to the lower mass gap of compact remnants.

Publisher’s Note: Detectable MeV neutrinos from black hole neutrino-dominated accretion flows [Phys. Rev. D 93 , 123004 (2016)

Received 2 November 2020DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.102.109902© 2020 American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasExtrasolar neutrino astronomyPhysical SystemsAccretion disk & black-hole plasmaAstronomical black holesGravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Neutrinos and gravitational waves from magnetized neutrino-dominated accretion discs with magnetic coupling

ABSTRACT Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) might be powered by black hole (BH) hyperaccretion systems via the Blandford–Znajek (BZ) mechanism or neutrino annihilation from neutrino-dominated accretion flows (NDAFs). Magnetic coupling (MC) between the inner disc and BH can transfer angular momentum and energy from the fast-rotating BH to the disc. The neutrino luminosity and neutrino annihilation luminosity are both efficiently enhanced by the MC process. In this paper, we study the structure, luminosity, MeV neutrinos, and gravitational waves (GWs) of magnetized NDAFs (MNDAFs) under the assumption that both the BZ and MC mechanisms are present. The results indict that the BZ mechanism will compete with the neutrino annihilation luminosity to trigger jets under the different partitions of the two magnetic mechanisms. The typical neutrino luminosity and annihilation luminosity of MNDAFs are definitely higher than those of NDAFs. The typical peak energy of neutrino spectra of MNDAFs is higher than that of NDAFs, but similar to those of core-collapse supernovae. Moreover, if the MC process is dominant, then the GWs originating from the anisotropic neutrino emission will be stronger particularly for discs with high accretion rates.

Black Hole Hyperaccretion in Collapsars. II. Gravitational Waves

Abstract As progenitors of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the core collapse of massive stars and the coalescence of compact object binaries are believed to be powerful sources of gravitational waves (GWs). In the collapsar scenario, a rotating stellar-mass black hole (BH) surrounded by a hyperaccretion disk might be active in the center of a massive collapsar, which is one of the plausible central engines of long GRBs. Such a BH hyperaccretion disk would be in a state of a neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF) at the initial stage of the accretion process; meanwhile, the jets attempt to break out from the envelope and circumstellar medium to power GRBs. In addition to collapsars, BH hyperaccretion systems are important sources of neutrinos and GWs. In this paper, we investigate the GW emission generated by the anisotropic neutrino emission from NDAFs in collapsar scenarios. As the results indicate, the typical frequency of GWs is ∼1–100 Hz, and the masses and metallicities of the progenitor stars have slight effects on the GW strains. The GWs from NDAFs might be detected by operational or planned detectors at a distance of 10 kpc. Moreover, comparisons of the detectable GWs from collapsars, NDAFs, and GRB jets (internal shocks) are displayed. By combining the electromagnetic counterparts, neutrinos, and GWs, one may constrain the characteristics of collapsars and central BH accretion systems.

Neutrino-dominated Accretion Flows with Magnetic Prandtl Number-dependent MRI-driven Turbulence

Abstract We investigate the stability of a neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF), which is expected to be formed in the gravitational collapse of a massive star or the merger of a neutron star binary, based on the variable-α prescription. Recent magnetohydrodynamic simulations shows that the viscosity parameter α is proportional to the power of the magnetic Prandtl number Pm = ν/η, where ν and η are the kinematic viscosity and electric resistivity of the fluid, respectively. In the inner region of a hyperaccretion flow, the viscosity and resistivity are carried by mildly, relativistically degenerated electrons. We fit the dependence of the magnetic Prandtl number on density and temperature by a simple analytic form, and derive the condition for an NDAF to be dynamically unstable. As demonstrations we perform simple one-dimensional simulations of NDAFs with variable-α and show that the mass accretion becomes highly time-variable in the unstable branch. This mechanism may account for the rapid variability observed in the prompt emission of gamma-ray bursts. The mass ejection from a hyperaccretion flow due to viscous heating, which makes a kilonova/macronova emission in the merger of a neutron star binary, is also briefly discussed.

Black Hole Hyperaccretion in Collapsars. I. MeV Neutrinos

Abstract As the plausible central engine of gamma-ray bursts, a black hole (BH) hyperaccretion disk should be in a state of neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF) if the accretion rate is larger than the ignition rate of an NDAF. A rotating stellar-mass BH surrounded by a hyperaccretion disk might be born in the center of a massive core collapsar. In the initial hundreds of seconds of the accretion process, the mass supply rate of the massive progenitor is generally higher than the ignition accretion rate, but the jets are generally choked in the envelope. Thus, neutrinos can be emitted from the center of a core collapsar. In this paper, we study the effects of the masses and metallicities of progenitor stars on the time-integrated spectra of electron neutrinos from NDAFs. The peak energies of the calculated spectra are approximately 10–20 MeV. The mass of a collapsar has little influence on the neutrino spectrum, and a low metallicity is beneficial to the production of low-energy (≲1 MeV) neutrinos. We also investigate the differences in the electron neutrino spectra between NDAFs and proto-neutron stars. Combining with the electromagnetic counterparts and multimessenger astronomy, one may verify the possible remnants of the core collapse of massive stars with future neutrino detectors.

Comparison of Gravitational Waves from Central Engines of Gamma-Ray Bursts: Neutrino-dominated Accretion Flows, Blandford–Znajek Mechanisms, and Millisecond Magnetars

Abstract Neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF) around a rotating stellar-mass black hole (BH) is one of the plausible candidates for the central engines of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Because the time-variant and anisotropic emission of neutrinos from NDAFs leads to GRB variability, NDAFs can be regarded as the sources of strong gravitational waves (GWs). We calculate the dependences of the GW strains on both the BH spin and the accretion rate. We demonstrate that, for typical GRBs with either a single pulse or multiple pulses, the GWs from NDAFs might be detected at a distance of ∼100 kpc/∼1 Mpc by the advanced LIGO/Einstein Telescope with a typical frequency of ∼ 10 – 100 Hz . Besides NDAFs, the other two competitive candidates for the GRB central engine are the Blandford–Znajek (BZ) mechanism and millisecond magnetars. We explore the GW signals from these two as well, and compare the corresponding results with NDAFs’. We find that for a certain GRB, the possible detected distance from NDAFs is about two orders of magnitude higher than that from the BZ mechanism, but at least two orders of magnitude lower than that from magnetars. The typical GW frequency for the BZ mechanism is the same as that of NDAFs, ∼ 10 – 100 Hz , while the typical frequency for magnetars is ∼2000 Hz. Therefore, the GWs released by the central engines of adjacent GRBs might be used to determine whether there is an NDAF, a BZ jet, or a magnetar in the GRB center.

What Can We Learn about GRB from the Variability Timescale Related Correlations?

Abstract Recently, two empirical correlations related to the minimum variability timescale (MTS) of the light curves are discovered in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). One is the anti-correlation between MTS and Lorentz factor Γ, and the other is the anti-correlation between the MTS and gamma-ray luminosity L γ . Both of the two correlations might be used to explore the activity of the central engine of GRBs. In this paper, we try to understand these empirical correlations by combining two popular black hole central engine models (namely, the Blandford &amp; Znajek mechanism (BZ) and the neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF)). By taking the MTS as the timescale of viscous instability of the NDAF, we find that these correlations favor the scenario in which the jet is driven by the BZ mechanism.

NUMERICAL AND ANALYTICAL SOLUTIONS OF NEUTRINO-DOMINATED ACCRETION FLOWS WITH A NON-ZERO TORQUE BOUNDARY CONDITION AND ITS APPLICATIONS IN GAMMA-RAY BURSTS

ABSTRACT A stellar-mass black hole (BH) surrounded by a neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF) has been discussed in a number of works as the central engine of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). It is widely believed that NDAF cannot liberate enough energy for bright GRBs. However, these works have been based on the assumption of a “no torque” boundary condition, which is invalid when the disk is magnetized. In this paper, we present both numerical and analytical solutions for NDAFs with non-zero boundary stresses and reexamine their properties. We find that an NDAF with such a boundary torque can be powerful enough to account for those bright short GRBs, energetic long GRBs, and ultra-long GRBs. The disk becomes viscously unstable, which makes it possible to interpret the variability of GRB prompt emission and the steep decay phase in the early X-ray afterglow. Finally, we study the gravitational waves radiated from a processing BH-NDAF. We find that the effects of the boundary torque on the strength of the gravitational waves can be ignored.

Detectable MeV neutrinos from black hole neutrino-dominated accretion flows

Neutrino-dominated accretion flows (NDAFs) around rotating stellar-mass black holes (BHs) have been theorized as the central engine of relativistic jets launched in massive star core collapse events or compact star mergers. In this work, we calculate the electron neutrino/anti-neutrino spectra of NDAFs by fully taking into account the general relativistic effects, and investigate the effects of viewing angle, BH spin, and mass accretion rate on the results. We show that even though a typical NDAF has a neutrino luminosity lower than that of a typical supernova (SN), it can reach $10^{50}-10^{51}~{\rm erg~s^{-1}}$ peaking at $\sim 10$ MeV, making them potentially detectable with the upcoming sensitive MeV neutrino detectors if they are close enough to Earth. Based on the observed GRB event rate in the local universe and requiring that at least 3 neutrinos are detected to claim a detection, we estimate a detection rate up to $\sim$ (0.10-0.25) per century for GRB-related NDAFs by the Hyper-Kamiokande (Hyper-K) detector if one neglects neutrino oscillation. If one assumes that all Type Ib/c SNe have an engine-driven NDAF, the Hyper-K detection rate would be $\sim$ (1-3) per century. By considering neutrino oscillations, the detection rate may decrease by a factor of 2-3. Detecting one such event would establish the observational evidence of NDAFs in the universe.